Jennifer Lynn Utterback
What Matters PRIVATE
We, my sister and me, were lucky,
we grew up with a playlot
behind our apartment.
On those sticky summer
afternoons we would squeeze
our skinny bodies through
the gap in the fence.
We had to sneak around
the tree stump, it was
78 years old, we counted
the rings. It was the oldest
thing we knew and that
was kinda neat.
We used to play softball
using a dandelion as 1st
base, but it had to be a
yellow dandelion, not a
white one, the white
ones would blow away,
2nd base was a mud spot
in the weeds and wherever
the 3rd baseman stood was
where 3rd base was.
The swings were always broken,
the slides were smeared with graffiti
and cats used the sandbox as a
litter box, but it was still our
playlot.
